After our trip to see the Chocolate hills and the Tarsiers, we headed to Bohol's and perhaps the Philippines best snorkelling site.

After some day long journeys the trip from Tagbiliran to Panglao Island was perhaps one the shortest so far, a mere 45min jeepney ride sitting next to two photogenic, toothless eighty year old women, if only we had the courage to take some photos! We arrived at Alona beach and were a little stunned, the white sand beach that we’d seen so often on postcards was actually a little bit mucky, only about 30 feet deep and skirted by a 3 foot crumbling concrete wall. Disappointed, we found a bungalow just off the beach and realised how spoilt we’ve been with the beaches we’ve seen on this trip.

Next day we took a walk down the full length of the beach, as it turned out we’d only seen the grubby half of the beach, and the other end of the beach was far bigger and picturesque although still not a match for the famous Boracay. We spent the next couple of day’s snorkelling in various places, just off the main beach the shallow water was home to a hundred metre strip of seaweed, whilst this doesn’t seem appealing it was home to a host of sea creatures we hadn’t seen on this trip so far. Within the first 10 metres of weed, we saw at least five different types of starfish, eels and lion fish, after fifty metres we must have seen at least 200 starfish. As soon as the weed finished the coral started and we saw many fish we’d never seen before.

The next day we joined a dive boat bound for Baliscag Island, we’d been told this was the best dive/snorkelling site in the Philippines and we certainly weren’t disappointed. As we jumped off the boat it was like jumping into an aquarium, there were literally thousands of fish of every shape, size and colour imaginable. As well as the multicoloured and electric blue reef fish there were shoals of thousands of circling Jack fish (similar to tuna fish). The coral was also absolutely stunning, we’ve been fortunate enough to snorkel in some incredible places, Baliscag Island rates as the best for the number of different types of fish.